LAST ROYAL GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS 33 



with which, in his history, as also in his private diary, 

 he speaks of his personal hardships, are very remark- 

 able. The pages of these charming books show the 

 thoroughbred Christian gentleman. But as a states- 

 man he was far from reading the temper of the people 

 correctly. He knew that in the violence which touched 

 him so nearly the sympathy of the people was not with 

 the rioters. He felt that all the troubles were due to 

 the unreasonable obstinacy of a few such men as James 

 Otis and Samuel Adams ; and that if these men could 

 be defeated, the general sense of the people would be 

 in favour of peace and quiet. In this opinion he mis- 

 conceived the facts of the situation very much as they 

 are misconceived to-day by such well-meaning British 

 writers as Mr. Lecky and Mr. Goldwin Smith. With 

 all their fairness toward America, these writers are 

 still blind to the fact that the issues raised by George 

 III. and his ministers in the Stamp Act of 1765, in 

 the Townshend acts of 1767, in the measures concern- 

 ing the salaries of crown officers in 1772, and finally 

 in the vindictive acts of 1774 after the Boston Tea 

 Party were one and all of them such issues as the 

 Americans could not for a moment accept without 

 shamefully abandoning the principles of free govern- 

 ment for which the whole English race has been man- 

 fully striving since the days of Magna Charta. If 

 British historians, sincerely desirous of doing justice 

 to America, find it hard to understand these things 

 to-day, perhaps it was not strange that some able men 

 like Hutchinson did not understand them at a time 

 when the baleful policy and selfish aims of George III. 

 were still dimly viewed through the mists of contem- 

 porary prejudice and passion. Hutchinson's own 



